Aug 23, 2019

Following my short presentation at ETAI - August 21

I posted this on facebook - directed to teachers of English in Israel.
I wish to thank ETAI for both the very good Acre Back to School Conference and the opportunity to introduce more colleagues to Moodle. While talking to many colleagues, I found out that if I want to encourage teachers to give Moodle a try, I need to help colleagues be fully aware of the added value of using this Learning Management System to complement their work in class. Yet FIRST THINGS FIRST: If you work in an Israeli Junior High School, or High School, YOU CAN GET MOODLE PLATFORMS FOR FREE from the Ministry, an do not need to enroll your pupils (more on this in another post). If your school works with Mashov, then you have access to Moodle Mashov (For Free). That is something to be aware of. And now, to business: Let's consider working on Vocabulary, to mention one major topic of yesterday's conference. When you use Moodle, the platform can serve as a GLUE to stick in One Place any and all the vocabulary related material you want to have your pupils learn, review and even be tested on. You can place on one topic one of more Files (Even Folders containing many files, such as worksheets, PowerPoint Presentations, PDF...). I mean even those worksheets that you give your pupils. To do so, you add Moodle File or Moodle Folder. You can also place links to videos, Google presentations, Quizlet activities, EdPuzzle or, better yet, H5P activities, Mindmaps, and more. To do so, you can add Moodle URL, or place links on a Moodle Page you add. Of course, you can create your own vocabulary activities using Moodle Resources (such as a Moodle Book or a Moodle Page), and Moodle Activities (such as Moodle Glossary, Moodle Quiz, Moodle Forum, etc.). Your pupils will be able to study and review vocabulary outside of class if they are motivated (ah, the million-dollar question: Are they?), or somehow engaged (the "How to" of that is the 2 million dollar question).BTW, if you know the answers, share (I need your help!). You can also test them on Moodle using Moodle Quiz and Moodle Assignment. So, what is the added value here? Moodle does not forget anything, it lets you reuse the material (part or all of it) with other courses and even on different school years, you can share with colleagues, and ... there must be more... One thing is important, too: Just like we require our pupils to learn, using Moodle requires some learning. Give it a try and you might never regret it. Thanks for your time!

I added this comment:

I wish to add one example to illustrate my point. This new school year, I will be teaching an 11th grade 5 points course using, along other textbooks, ECB "High Five". Using Moodle, I can have a topic which I may call "High Five - Chapter 1", and on which I will place some of those features I have just mentioned. Two of them are links to two Quizlets ( one prepared by "alizashe", and another i prepared based on the previous one). I will get pupils to work on them partly in class, and hopefully, mostly at home. Since we must work a lot on vocabulary, I will attempt to follow Prof. Penny Ur's advice and devote 1/3 of class time to vocabulary https://quizlet.com/_6xn40g

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